Microsoft: These new OneDrive features on iOS, Android, web, are headed your way

Microsoft this month will roll out new features for the iOS and Android OneDrive cloud file-storage app, as well as OneDrive on the web.

The update aims to improve productivity by helping OneDrive users bring order to scans of handwritten meeting notes, and make work documents easier to share.

The OneDrive mobile app will get a simple way to add custom metadata to any scans or images taken from a mobile device.

Users would start a scan from a Library the file should go into. After taking the scan, metadata fields appear and can be filled in on the go.

Once meeting notes have been scanned, OneDrive will then prompt the user to share the scan with other people at the meeting.

The time-saving feature relies on Microsoft Graph’s connections between files, scans and meetings to know which contacts to share the scan with. It will also be available on iOS and Android in November.

OneDrive on the web meanwhile will be getting a refreshed Recent view. Microsoft promises it will be “simple, faster and more satisfying to use”.

The improved Recent view will come to Office files first, while other file types will be improved over time. It will roll out over the next few months.

Manage Access, the OneDrive feature for controlling who has access to files and folders, is also being updated to make it easier for users to add and remove people on links limited to specific people.

The update will also make it clear who is using a particular link. That’s rolling out through November and December.

Microsoft has also announced that on February 1 next year it will drop support for OneDrive desktop on Mac OS X Yosemite 10.10 and Mac OS X El Capitan 10.11.

Microsoft says it’s a business decision and notes that Apple has already dropped mainline support for both versions of OS X.

OneDrive on affected versions will still work, but Microsoft won’t be testing their functionality and bugs won’t be fixed. It will also block OneDrive installations on these versions of OS X after the cut-off date.

Users are urged to upgrade to Mac OS X Sierra 10.12 or later, but Microsoft recommends upgrading to the macOS Mojave 10.14.

Microsoft is rolling out intelligent meeting note-sharing with OneDrive on Android, left, and a common sharing dialog in Word Mobile, right.